http://www.pentagram.com/what-type-are-you/
pass: character
http://www.pentagram.com/what-type-are-you/
pass: character
He died because of his work, right? I read, long time ago, that he had a bunch of works that were rejected so he got into a depression.
Yesterday I bought a book about Ando Hiroshige's work and life,I also have one about Gaudí, Borges, and many other artists... I would love to have one about Cassandre's life.
BTW, he died the day you were born?? Wow... Maybe his spirit moved into your body or some other budist thing...
Yes, he hanged himself because a German foundry rejected one of his progressive font designs. There's a great biography of him written by his son, Henri Mouron. I haven't read the whole thing, but from what I remember it's a bit apologetic at least when it comes to his type design efforts, which would be a shame.
BTW, my favorite quotes of his:
- "The poster is to art what rape is to love."
- "The quattrocento was the painter's century par excellence; our century is probably the sandwich man's."
> he died the day you were born??
In fact potentially with an hour or two. What's extra spooky is that he was intent on reforming the Latin alphabet, as am I. An inconvenient difference however is that he was actually talented!
hhp
The best place to read about my Alphabet Reform work is my essay "Improving the Tool", in Gunnar Swanson's "Graphic Design & Reading" (2000). There's a quarter-length version in Spanish and English in issue #54 of Tipografica magazine:
http://www.tipografica.com/54/?id=4
There is however a big caveat: Although the motivation and fundamental logic remain from that early effort, I have since realized something crucial that largely invalidates those results: letterform skeletons hold us away from optimal text face design; we must instead work "liminally" - designing the border between black and white.
Hanging: I'm too full of myself for that.
hhp
Sorry for the late answer, It was late and I had get up early this morning...
Hey! It was awsome to read about you in that magazine! I used to buy it... I repeat: it is a very interesting and herculean work you've got there. I once read a book called "Diseño.com" by Nestor Sexe, I remember he mentioned the mutability and immutability of a sign. This is, as you said in the magazine's article, the letterforms do change but we will never notice maybe. The mutation of a form or the signification of a sign is a change that comes along with sociological changes (such as sumerian or egyptian script) or technological changes (such as the invention of the printing by Gutenberg).
I think it's great that you lead and improve this changes to legibility and easy writing. I did an investigation on the characteristics of the typefaces and the aesthetics movements of the time they were created. It was very interesting to see how the form of the writing keeps changing according to the culture, art, technologies, and even religion.
I would love to keep talking and learning about this, but I think we went off the topic of this thread...
For those who might be interested, the (Toronto) Globe and Mail had an article about the Pentagram site, and mentioned Typophile in it. Called us type nerds, or something.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/meet-your-match---typographically-at...
Here is the transcript of my email conversation with John Allemang.
>> Hi Nick,
>>
>> I'm writing a short article for Saturday's paper on the link between
>> typefaces and personality types -- based on Pentagram's What Type Are
>> You?
>> quiz. Would you have a few minutes to share your thoughts on how fonts
>> link up with personality?
>>
>> All the best,
>>
>> John Allemang
> Hi John,
>
> Pentagram has picked up on the "social research app" meme and larded it
> with video and edutainment to create a viral promotion.
>
> There was a "What font are you" quiz on Facebook early last year which may
> have given Pentagram the idea:
> http://www.quibblo.com/quiz/87AyPEY/What-Font-Are-You
> Or this:
> http://www.buzzfeed.com/scott/what-font-are-you
> Ot this:
> http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/helvetica/quiz.html
> Or this:
> http://dev.typophile.com/node/5443
> Or this:
> http://blog.extensis.com/typecaster/
> &c. &c.
>
> Trite amusement.
>
> **
>
> I don't believe in government by opinion poll.
> I don't believe in product development by market research.
> I don't believe in examination by multiple choice.
> I don't believe in categorizing people, therefore I don't believe in
> personality types. Only behaviour.
> I believe in creating typefaces that resist categorization.
>
> A font is a tool that may be used to create many effects. The blackletter
> style, for instance, is good for ecclesiastical work, alternatively hip
> hop and heavy metal tattoos.
> Fonts are like actors. Some can play many different parts, others always
> play themselves.
> Fonts are like musical instruments. Some, like the french horn, have
> little range. Others, like the piano, huge.
> Fonts are only superficially like anything else.
>
> If graphology is a pseudoscience, how much less meaningful that makes the
> correspondence between typeface and personality type.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Nick Shinn
> I'm assuming the responses in the typophile link below are all deeply
> tongue in cheek -- you're playing this game, however cleverly, just to
> mock the stupidity of it?
- John
That thread wasn't a multiple-choice "what (personality/font) type are
you" game.
It was more about physical appearance than personality.
Humour, certainly, but not mockery. It was an invitation by David
Goldstein to banter about which fonts one might find sexually attractive,
if one caricatured oneself as a typeface.
I suggested that I was the auto-erotic Thesis, a typeface with both serif
and sans serif varieties--riffing on the previous poster's mention of Gill
Sans' attraction to Perpetua, which is to all intents and purposes "Gill
Serif", both designed by the sexually notorious Eric Gill.
When Andy Clymer said, "I'm Akzidenz Grotesk, only more optimistic," well,
that wasn't about anything other than the horrific name of that particular
typeface.
So I don't think that thread addressed the issue of whether personality
type/typeface correspondence is stupid or not. There are no doubt other
Typophile threads which do, but searching Typophile archives is difficult.
_Nick
***
I would imagine that Mr Allemang's article was also edited, and that a third party wrote the headline and deck.
Although I think this stuff is trivial and the topic worthy of more than "a few minutes to share your thoughts", I feel obliged to participate from a business perspective, to keep myself in the public eye and on the usual suspects list when it comes to type design commissions. So I am slightly peeved that after spending quite a few minutes corresponding with Mr Allemang, I was mentioned as a "designer", not a type designer, and that the word "designing" was removed from my statement "I believe in designing typefaces that defy categorization", without, even, the substitution of an ellipsis.
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